Today, there is a growing awareness of parents, teachers and therapists regarding the connections between neuromotor functioning of subjects and the subjects' learning skills and other behavioral, psychological and mental problems, disorders and the like.
A subject may be any human tested or, trained for identifying learning skills related problems such as toddlers, children and the like.
Many learning-related disorders such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and many more are found to be neurological disorders that may affect the subject's learning abilities such as concentration, speed of thought, reading and writing and the like. Therefore, diagnosing problems in certain motor activities may relate to or indicate the subject's learning skills or behavioral difficulties.
Studies show a clear connection between the brain's ability to automate physical activities and the level of timing functioning (mainly controlled by the cerebellum an area in the brain that is responsible for the regulation and coordination of complex voluntary muscular movements as well as the maintenance of posture and balance) and the subject's learning skills, learning and behavioral disorders. For example, subjects with cerebellum damage may show difficulties in performing timed tasks {see Rebecca M. C. Spencer, Richard B. Ivry, Howard N. Zelaznik, “Roll of the cerebellum in movements: Control of timing or movements translations?”, 2004}.
Studies have shown that exercises involving requiring subjects to maintain monotonic and/or rhythmic physical activity while performing different actions such as reading, writing, speaking and the like may be a powerful tool both for diagnosing the subject's level of neuromotor functioning, as well as for training subjects with low neuromotor functioning to improve the subjects' learning skills and behavior.
Recent studies reveal that the neuromotor functioning of a subject may be estimated and graded when a subject performs refined exercises in which he/she performs fine graphical actions such as writing the alphabet letters or copying shapes while following a metronome monotonic rhythmus—writing a letter per a metronome-nock, for example.
A patent number U.S. Pat. No. 6,719,690 by Cassily James F. discloses a timing, assessment tool that is manipulatable by a user in response to the user's expected occurrence of a rhythmic reference signal. The timing assessment tool derives a rhythmic assessment from a pattern of user responses to the user's expected occurrence of the rhythmic reference signal. An analyzer, which may include a database, is provided to respond to the rhythmic assessment to indicate a diagnosis and/or corrective intervention. Cassily's tool include sensing devices such as hand and feet sensors measuring the responses of a user to the rhythmic signal.
Cassily's patent enables measuring the time-shifts between the subject's responses under a heard or visually displayed rhythmus and the actual rhythm played by the system. Those shifts indicate the neurological pattern and functioning of the subject.